Oct
13
PR Agencies - and then there were loads …
October 13, 2008 |
Good grief I have really taken my eye off the ball concerning this blog! Seems my energies have been more focussed on the other blog … not sure what that says about me really. Still here goes for something more ‘professional’ …
It seems like only yesterday whent the thought of engaging a (yeuk!) PR agency would have sent shivers down the corporate spine, only marginally more acceptable to admitting a penchant for colonic irrigation. But my, how time have changed.
The first foray into this area was with Edelman, or rather the London office of this global concern who reckon that they ‘provide strategic thinking and deliver high-impact campaigns - across the full spectrum of Communications.’ Our challenge to them was to handle the Access Management transition work, a bit of a big ask for anyone. There was an excellent set-up meeting with some sparky types and a cunning plan ensued. However despite their best efforts I don’t think anyone can consider the Access Management process a PR success - this has less to do with friends Edelman and more to do with the inherent madness that can be JISC. We still don’t want to be guided by the professionals it sometimes seems, more comfortable with doing it our own way. I imagine Edelman were none too impressed by the experience which probably led to us getting a ’second team’ resource for a small one-off piece of work. I don’t really think that we are sufficiently mature in PR acceptance or mainstream enough to retain the devotions of the likes of Edelman. Perhaps a lesson learnt?
Undaunted, and with the whole topic of brand, public affairs and a general acceptance that ‘relationships with our publics’ is a real issue, from SMT and Board level down, on we push. The next stab at using a PR agency has been around the Digitisation programme and the launch of Newsfilm Online in particular. For this project we used Flagship who seemed to do a reasonable job, some nice coverage, an added layer of professionalism … I do wonder however whether we might not have done just as well using our in-house resource? Ooops a bit of heresy slipping in again…
Personally speaking the main test about the worth of engaging PR types will be seen in the success or otherwise of a couple of other projects that are on the go. Firstly the old chestnut of how JISC describes itself - we have been rubbish at this for ever it seems, too introspective, too long and complicated and frankly too dull. Well as a fag-end piece around our brand work, and a starting point for more public affairs related work, we have taken on The Team (at the time of writing I can’t seem to locate their website - that can’t be a good thing for PR agency can it?…Probably my rubbish search techniques) to help guide us through the morass of fixing strap lines, brand statements and so forth
The second area of current work is concerned with building a stakeholder engagment programme. Here we have taken on Bray Leino with their oh so handy Bristol office. Based on a single set up session this looks like it might be very useful - forcing us to prioritise audiences, defining clear messages, fixing realistic and acheievable activity plans and so forth, all re-presented no doubt in suitable PR speak that will, with a bit of luck, impress those above who like to see stuff given the added veneer of an external prophet.
Well no doubt future comments on PR will come forth …
